Review of Heaven's Gate (1980) by Steven T — 25 Aug 2010

If you know anything about film history, then you've probably heard about this film, "Heaven's Gate." This film single handedly toppled United Artists, and drove out the prospect of auteurism in Hollywood. A lot of the American New Wave directors had begun to lose clout with the Hollywood producers because of this film and some other minor box office (maybe not critical) flops of the 80s.

Now, don't get me wrong; I REALLY LIKE Cimino. I loved his "Deer Hunter" as well as "Year of the Dragon," but something about this movie did not cut it for me.

One thing I will say for sure is, Michael Cimino really knows how to SHOOT a picture. The vision of this world in the late 1800s is absolutely STUNNING. It might have been a bit dusty all over the place, but it was in the late 1800s. I kind of am able to imagine America being that way back in the day. He also knows how to shoot BIG Ballroom scenes and mob scenes, as well as stage good battles. I will also give him credit for his soundtrack composers. This film is full of stirring, melodic music.

But a movie has to be more than just a beautiful picture with good music. It must be engaging, and it must draw you in somehow through the story, characters or even the actors' personalities. But in this movie, I did not find any of those things engaging.

First of all, I did not understand the story AT ALL. I felt the speech in the university went on WAY TOO LONG. I did not understand anything John Hurt said. I think he was reading a quote or a poem. Another problem was, I did not feel engaged by any of the characters. There's a love triangle in this movie that I can barely comprehend and each of the characters in that love triangle are impenetrable as human beings. I did not understand the history of these characters or their relationship except that they are all in love with one another. That's only the beginning. This film has SO MANY side characters, played by great actors like Mickey Rourke and Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterson from Law & Order, but you don't care about any of them, or at least I didn't. The performers were all good and decent, but they all seemed to have been whispering and my close-caption was not working so this further confused me. I did not understand what anyone was saying, especially since they muttering in really deep mid-west accents.

This aimless 4 hour movie was so confusing, I had to pause it a couple of times to read the synopses of the film just to keep my head clear and straight. Half way through (Yes, I Tivoe'd the movie), I found myself either falling asleep or getting angry that nothing was going on and I didn't know or couldn't relate to anyone on the screen. I found myself pressing the fast - forward button. But I REALLY REALLY tried. I sat through 2 hours and 40 minutes before I shut down and just did not care. I couldn't even sit still enough to watch the last gun fight. I just felt like my thumb had a mind of it's own, and all it was thinking about was fast - forwarding through the thing.

Yet, this film is definitely a beautiful looking and sounding epic film of a little - known event in American history. The problem is when you make a movie that makes people want to read a history book instead so that they understand the TRUE events, I think you really need to just sit down and start cutting a lot of stuff. A lot of the aimless romantic subplot could have been cut down, there were WAY too many dances as well as too many characters. Each one was drawn as a caricature and none of them was deeply understood.

I'm sorry, but I really tried to like this movie. Did the negative buzz just take over or did I just not give it a strong enough chance. I really wanted this movie to beat the bad - hype for me though. I really enjoy Cimino's work as a visual stylist and usually he evokes great, poignant performances, but this movie wasn't able to do that because it seemed like he was looking at the characters from afar. I still like Cimino and hope "Year of the Dragon" which I can't wait to finish, ends just as great as "Deer Hunter.".